Twelve months ago, towards the end of the summer window, Willy Gnonto began pushing for a move to Everton. Given Leeds United have lost arguably their three best players in the last seven weeks, the paranoia that Gnonto will leave too is understandable.
Those players’ departures have left head coach Daniel Farke amid, what he termed on Thursday, a “rebuild” — despite Leeds entering this season as one of the Championship title favourites.
Anger has been directed at the ownership for perceived laxness with these players’ release clauses, but Farke was a man under pressure, too. First, he was winless this season; second, his 4-2-3-1 has failed to gel so far; third, this is a Yorkshire derby; and fourth, he is the head coach of Leeds United.
Sheffield Wednesday are not the best squad in the Championship, but they have one of its most promising coaches in Danny Rohl. The German’s gambit last night was to shift into a back five — hoping to reduce space and allow his wing-backs to spring past any over-excitement from Leeds’ wingers.
Farke’s response was simple and made Gnonto the game’s central figure: dropping him into deep midfield spaces and giving him the licence to go. Barry Bannan’s legs have a combined 68 years between them and were not designed to cope.
Farke’s system, modelled by Crysencio Summerville last season, highlights wingers. Gnonto stood alone on the pitch before kick-off, shorn of close friends Summerville and Georginio Rutter, surely aware he will now need to take even more of a leading role, even with the arrival of Largie Ramazani.
His solo goal in the opening-day 3-3 draw against Portsmouth was a decent start, but Leeds were goalless in their two matches since then: thrashed by Middlesbrough and set up negatively at West Bromwich Albion last weekend. On the anniversary of last summer’s wantaway episode, this was an opportunity for Gnonto to reprise his match-winning turn from this fixture last season.
Daniel Farke had been under pressure at Leeds (Lewis Storey/Getty Images)
“I like Elvis Presley — a little less conversation, a little more action,” Farke said of the mission to replace Rutter, Summerville and Archie Gray this week, and for the first 20 minutes, it was a lesson Gnonto might have heeded. The recipient of some firm (but ultimately permissible) tackling from Wednesday, he found himself on a yellow card, and in near-constant dialogue with referee Stuart Hooper — to the official’s visible ire. Farke gently chided him post-game for giving away set-piece opportunities with these outbursts.
In his first attempt to drop deep, Gnonto lost the ball and was shouted at by goalkeeper Illan Meslier. Still, he persisted. With Wednesday’s back five, this was the best way to get him the ball.
After 21 minutes, he went down in Wednesday’s box following a heavy challenge and was booed by the Kop as he took over 45 seconds to get up. Less than two minutes later, they were silent.
Picking up the ball from Brenden Aaronson, he drove forward from a low position like a sprinter out of the blocks. The natural passes against a stretched Wednesday defence appeared to be either spreading it wide to the overlapping Junior Firpo, or a speculative clipped return to Aaronson.
Gnonto chose neither, instead threading a pass through a rotating keyhole into Mateo Joseph’s stride. The Spaniard appeared to be fouled by Yan Valery, but the ball broke into Aaronson’s pass, who continued his zero-to-hero-to-zero-to-hero pathway by sweeping in.
GO DEEPER
How Brenden Aaronson can win over Leeds United fans
“You can put it in the album for the best example of possession football,” Farke said in his post-match press conference.
But possibly the most impressive part of Leeds’ performance was how they dictated play after going ahead: pinning Wednesday deep and displaying the control they lacked against Portsmouth. Farke made the point post-match that Leeds and Wednesday had won the first and second most points in the Championship in 2024, a rare misstep (they were first and fourth) but the principle stands. It has not been easy to do this to Wednesday at Hillsborough.
A major part of this was Gnonto forcing Leeds back — sometimes picking the ball up straight from the centre-backs, as if a deep-lying No 6, before turning upfield. His jog beats Bannan’s sprint, and while Svante Ingelsson does not hesitate to put in a slide tackle, that can put him out of the game.
If he did not beat Wednesday players directly, he picked off defenders with one-twos, particularly with Joseph and Firpo. At the end of the first half, Farke’s tactic had proved so effective that he trialled playing Gnonto centrally for five minutes, keen to see if he could add to his workload.
“We want Willy to be more flexible in his movements, to cover different positions and not be too static,” Farke explained post-match. “This is exactly how we want him to play, he was at times unplayable. He’s still a young player, he can get smarter, and then he’ll be even more effective.”
Rohl was even more emphatic about what doomed his team.
“I think it was the key point,” replied Rohl, asked by The Athletic about Gnonto’s impact in deeper spaces. “He created overloads, they always had four players in midfield to create a diamond.
“At half-time, we tried to adapt, but even if you mark him, he has a solution one against one, and then it’s hard to come back. He’s a key player in this league. If you open the space, lose a duel, you have to run, run, and run. That was a key point.”
Leeds’ second goal was a product of their dominance and Wednesday overcommitting when they had a rare spell of possession. Joseph channelled his inner Rutter to play Dan James through, James in turn channelled his inner Gabriel Batistuta to impudently chip James Beadle.
Dan James scores Leeds’ second (Lewis Storey/Getty Images)
At 2-0 up, Leeds cruised their way to the finish. Gnonto’s name was chanted by the supporters in the Leppings Lane End after 76 minutes, and five minutes later he embarrassed Wednesday substitute Djeidi Gassama. Running rings is usually used as a metaphor; here it was literal. Gassama kicked him, because it was all he could do.
This Leeds squad still needs signings: they had two goalkeepers and a 17-year-old on the bench here. Still, this was both 90 minutes of escapism from that reality and a 90-minute reminder of what Leeds already have — particularly Gnonto.
(Top photo: Robbie Jay Barratt — AMA/Getty Images)
